Legal News

Pen-ance: Bristol-Myers Exec. Gets Two Years of Hard Writing

By Ashby Jones

Malcolm Gladwell, John Grisham, you can put away your worry beads. Dr. Andrew G. Bodnar’s book is unlikely to displace you guys atop the bestseller lists.

For starters, the book’s topic is decidedly unsexy: a patent dispute over Bristol-Myers Squibb’s blood-thinning drug Plavix. And the book isn’t even Bodnar’s idea; he’s being ordered to write it as part of a criminal sentence. That’s right, a criminal sentence. Click here for the NYT story.

Bodnar recently pleaded guilty to making a false statement about the company’s efforts to resolve a dispute between Bristol-Myers Squibb and Apotex, a Canadian generic-drug maker. On Monday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., Ricardo M. Urbina, sentenced Bodnar to two years of probation during which he is to write a book about his experience connected to the case. Dr. Bodnar must also pay a $5,000 fine.

According to the NYT, it’s not the first time Judge Urbina has asked for something in writing. In 1998, he sentenced a prominent Washington lobbyist to write and distribute a monograph to 2,000 lobbyists at the defendant's own expense.

In the sentencing hearing on Monday, Judge Urbina said he would like to see Bodnar write a book about the Plavix case as a cautionary tale to other executives. [End of Post]

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 09, 2009 (boomark / email).